Israel Readies for Slaughter of Innocents in Rafah

After a temporary withdrawal of most battalions from Gaza a little over a week ago, Israel’s military forces are redeploying to Gaza.

The return seems to confirm that the removal of those forces from Gaza was in anticipation of Iran’s planned and now concluded revenge attack, after Israel ran its airstrike in Damascus which destroyed the consulate and killed at least three Iranian senior military generals on April 1.

According to sources on the ground in the Gaza Strip, Israeli Defense Forces quietly brought an array of additional munitions, rocket launchers, and other artillery to the edges of the strip over the last few days.

Israel also shipped out multiple armored personnel carriers on the outskirts of Rafah. But these are very different than ordinary vehicles of this category which mostly can move troops into an area quickly while the vehicle structure protects it against shelling from resistance forces. These new armored personnel carriers, the first of their kind supposedly to be positioned for use in Gaza just for this invasion, are sophisticated vehicles which can travel at rated top speeds of up to 90 km/hour (55 mph), even on sand and uneven terrain such as the rubble left from the many past indiscriminate Israeli bombings of Palestinian civilian apartment buildings, schools, and hospitals. These carriers, known by their Eitan brand designation, are also outfitted with on-board anti-missile systems capable of shooting down rockets, drones, and short-range ballistic missiles.

Developed for the Israeli Ministry of Defense (IMOD)’s Merkava and Armored Vehicles Directorate, the Eitan achieves its speed and maneuverability thanks to a relatively light weight of 35 tons, a value far lighter than its predecessor, the M113 armored personnel carrier, which is still in use elsewhere in the country. It can carry up to three crew members and twelve other military personnel while still moving at its rated top speed. Depending on how each individual unit is outfitted, it can come with a 30-40 mm automatic gun along with a missile firing system with 2 Spike missiles in position. The Spike missiles can engage with any targets within their line of sight, with a guidance system known in the military war trade as a “fire and forget” system.

The normal armor on the Eitan is rated STANAG 4569 Level 4. STANAG is an acronym for the NATO Standardization Agreement, which provides a means of comparing the relative impenetrability of the logistics and armored personnel carriers. The rating associated with the Eitan means that it can protect its occupants against 14.5×114mm armor-piercing (AP) projectiles fired at it from as far away as 200 meters (660 feet) and with launch velocities up to 911 m/s (roughly 3000 ft/s). The rating also shows the carriers can prevent serious damage even when faced with 155 mm high-explosive artillery shells which detonate up to 30 meters away. STANAG 4569 Level 4 protected vehicles are also capable of surviving mine or other IEDs (Improvised Explosive Devices) with a total mass of up to 10 kg (22 pounds).

The Eitan armored personnel carriers Israel just deployed to Gaza are also the first vehicles entering this region which are equipped with what Israel calls its “Iron Fist” defense system. Similar in concept to the Iron Dome technology, the Iron Fist Light Decoupled Active Protection System (APS) features what are known in the military murder trade as “hard and soft kill capabilities”. Using complex surveillance and targeting technology, plus features unique to missiles onboard the Eitan vehicles, the Iron Fist solution provides highly effective protection of the tank-like carriers even in the most intense of attacks by anti-tank weaponry.

The Iron Fist defense system was developed by Israel’s Elbit Systems, in partnership with American war contractors.

That Israel is bringing this kind of equipment to Gaza reportedly for the first time represents a substantial escalation of the kind of military strikes Israel is planning for as it gets ready for the next phase of the war.

Beyond the weaponry, Israeli Defense Forces announced on April 16 that it had purchased 40,000 tents it would be sending in shortly to the southernmost region of Gaza. The zionists said those tents would be used for the forced evacuation of at least some of the estimated 1.4 million Palestinians currently sheltering in the Rafah region, an area Israel once directed them to move to as a place where they would be safe.

That was just one of many lies Israel told the Palestinians and the world. Those who escaped the devastation in the north and central parts of Gaza to the south are now positioned to be forced out or murdered.

The positioning of new troops, military equipment, and tents in south comes as Israel in the last few days stepped up attacks again across Gaza.

One of the deadliest of those took place on April 16, when Israeli warplanes fired upon the Al-Maghazi and the Al-Nusseirat refugee camps located in Central Gaza. Those airstrikes destroyed at least four multi-story residential buildings nearby with an unknown number of innocent people trapped within and struck without warning. At least eleven people were killed between the two locations. Observer reports from nearby Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital said at least 25 people were injured in the Al-Maghazi portion of the airstrikes. The severely injured and killed alike were scattered across the ruins of buildings from those and earlier Israeli strikes there.

During the evening of April 16 and the morning of April 17, zionists proudly declared they had struck at least 40 separate targets in Rafah, all of which they said were tied to a collective of four battalions of Hamas which they said were hiding in and around the city, with one of those they claimed as having been operating a single armed drone and operating rocket launchers. At least seven children and other innocents died in those attacks.

As Israeli increased its deadly murder count, Hezbollah forces claimed credit for the deaths of multiple Israeli forces in Metula, Israel. Metula is Israel’s northernmost city and borders with Lebanon, where much of Hezbollah’s leadership and military forces are based.

The ceasefire talks in Qatar which that country and Egypt have been holding almost continuously for months with representatives of Israel and Hamas, and occasionally the United States, broke down again yesterday, adding to the seriousness of the current crisis. It happened after Hamas once again rejected a deal which would require them to release some 40 women, children, and elderly or sick Israeli hostages, but allow the war to restart six weeks later. Hamas has repeatedly said any ceasefire proposal it would accept must include plans to move from a temporary halt to the war to a permanent one, among other things.

Those talks may have reached their final impasse, at least with Qatar involved. After the latest breakdown in talks, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani of Qatar, speaking publicly about the state of the talks for the first time, raised concerns as he described the situation as having entered “a delicate phase”.

He also for the first time publicly chastised those who were simply using the ceasefire discussions for their own ends, with no real intent to achieve a lasting peace for all.

"Unfortunately, … we have seen that there has been an abuse of this mediation and an abuse of this mediation in favor of narrow political interests," he said at a press conference yesterday in Doha, the nation’s capital.

Because of this and past failures in the talks, he then announced that, as of this moment, “the state of Qatar has called for a comprehensive evaluation of [its] role” in supporting future discussions between the parties.

“We are now at this stage to evaluate mediation and also evaluate how the parties engage in this mediation," he said.

No information is available yet from Qatar on what they might change about their status, or if they will completely pull out of the process. Qatar is unfortunately one of the few countries in the world with unique connections to all major groups involved in the ceasefire talks, so if it were not involved any further it would at the very least signal that all chances for a ceasefire are over.

Regarding what comes next for Israel, multiple reports from the Israeli military say they now have agreement on how they will proceed with the next phase of the genocide in Gaza, including in Rafah. There will first be further escalation of the aerial attacks in the north, central, and south of Gaza, with separate military plans for each region. In the southern town of Gaza, other than the ordering of refugee tents and extensive deployment of new military equipment, some of which is more threatening and is new to Gaza, the IDF is keeping tight-lipped about what they will do. Monitoring where the tents are ultimately laid out, something which will of course happen before the forced evacuation proceeds, which in turn will precede the final invasion of Rafah, will provide further clues as to IDF’s plans soon.

Also in play in this is the coming escalation by Israel in its conflict with Iran. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has decided to go after Iran after this past weekend’s confrontation, despite strong rhetoric from western powers not to move forward. With Iran threatening a quick and more terrifying response this time, the fight with Iran could postpone – or change the nature of – what it may do in Rafah.